


Disc Zero: Redux

by GohanRoxas



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Crossover elements, F/M, Major canon divergence, Minor Horror Elements, OC/Canon Pairings, Pseudo Self-Insert, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:00:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4243458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GohanRoxas/pseuds/GohanRoxas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up in a tiny little town, all alone, I didn't particularly expect my life to be all that exciting. Of course, I also didn't expect getting kidnapped by an all-powerful Arbiter of Time and coerced into going to some world called Gaia to prevent certain catastrophic events from happening. So, I guess I just have to deal, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disc Zero: Redux

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been floating around in my head for so long I've forgotten when it turned up. I do know I'd started writing for it under the title "Disc Zero" on FF, but lost interest in it eventually. After getting a few pointers from friends on how to fix the idea - and spurred on by the announcement of the remake - I decided to come back to it. Enjoy!

The day had pretty much begun just like any other. I fell off my bed, face-planting onto soft but not soft enough carpet, ate a simple breakfast, didn’t bother to brush my hair, and went out to the town markets.

The town was called Baron, and it wasn’t anywhere particularly exciting. Sure, we had this statue thing that apparently depicted the patron Spirit of the town: Odin, the Betrayed King. As well as the stylized figure of Odin in some foreign armour, wielding a spear doubling as a crescent blade on both ends, riding a nine-legged horse…there were three more figures: kneeling before him, his back turned, was a man in demonic-looking armour. On the opposite side, standing proudly, facing Odin was a young man with long hair and tight-looking armour of some kind. Finally, standing directly behind Odin was a woman with hair that fell onto one shoulder, wearing armour that made her look like a Valkyrie.

The markets were kind of the other thing that Baron was known for. People came from all over to visit them, not that the stalls sold anything really cool, to be blunt. It was purely for the atmosphere, if I’m honest. The people in Baron treated the markets like a festival that happened twice a week, every week.

As I looked around at all the stalls and smiling faces, I wasn’t really paying much attention to where I was going. Which is probably why I collided with someone and landed flat on my ass.

“Eesh…” I groaned as I stood, stooping to pick up the person’s belongings. “Sorry about that.”

As the other person stood, hands out to receive the things they’d dropped, I became acutely aware that it was a woman. A woman who looked like a goddamn model. She wore tight white pants and black heels, as well as a white tank top and an overshirt of the same hue. Her face was rounded, but angular at the same time. Light pink hair cascaded over one shoulder.

She chuckled quietly, and I suddenly realised I wanted to hear that sound forever and a day if given the chance. “It’s no problem. I was probably supposed to bump into someone or other today.”

My head tilted. “Supposed to?”

“It’s…complicated.” She gave me a long look…long enough a look to make me feel vaguely uncomfortable, anyway. “Is your name Leon, by any chance?”

Okay, now this was starting to get weird. “Um…yes. Why?”

Her fingers snapped and she smiled. “I knew it! You’re the one I’m supposed to run into!”

“That didn’t really answer my question.”

The woman winced suddenly. “Sorry. And I’m sorry for this too.”

“For wha…”

_Wham!_

Fist.

Ground.

Darkness.

* * *

When I woke up, I was sitting in a weird, futuristic-looking seat. And I was surrounded by weirder, more futuristic lights in a weird, futuristic darkness.

As you can see, I’d already established that wherever this place I was in was, it was weird and it was futuristic. Other than that, though, I knew nothing.

As I looked around, I heard a rumbling noise nearby and craned my head to look where it was coming from…and immediately wished that I hadn’t.

Rising up from an ethereal-looking hole in the ground was a frickin’ eight-armed _giant_! Not only was he spider-armed and huge, but he had what looked kinda like _kabuki_ make-up on his giant face. “Who dares enter the domain of the mighty Gilgamesh?!”

I just froze, staring at this…Gilgamesh thing.

“Well?” it demanded, almost petulantly. “This is the part where you say something witty or something. That’s what it says in the script!”

“S-script?”

The thing paused. “Oh. Wait. This isn’t a movie or a video game. It’s fanfiction! There’s no such thing as a script! The writer’s making all of this up on the fly!”

For some weird reason, I felt the urge to tell this thing to shut up for fear of some deity at a keyboard doing something horrible to us both.

From the shadows, I heard another voice, this one sounding slightly altered by some kind of voice filter. “Enough, Gilgamesh. Our friend here is in this place for a reason, and it is not to be bothered by you.”

Gilgamesh seemed to pout a little. Though I couldn’t really tell, because of the shape of his face. “Oh, fine. I’ll go blubber to Ultros and Typhon now.” And then he schlumped off, vanishing from sight.

My eyes still incredibly wide, I turned to look at the newcomer, who at least _looked_ human. He was tall and wore a regal-looking suit of armour, all gold and silver with black and red fabrics. In his hand he held a spear, which looked like it was a hell of a lot more than ceremonial.

“Wha…what the hell is going on?” I demanded of this guy. “First I bump into this woman, then she knows my name, then she _punches_ me, and now there’s an eight-armed giant talking nonsense!”

The figure didn’t move. “She punched you? Hmm. She tends to do that. I must have words with her about that.”

I just looked at him.

“I am Valfodr,” he introduced himself then, “the Arbiter of Time, and caretaker of this realm. You have been summoned here to prevent a catastrophic series of events, while assuring another variation of the timeline in another world.”

I blinked. “Whoa, back up. Can you go back to the part you skipped over about timelines and other worlds? Because I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about!”

His steel-encased grip on his spear seemed to tighten. “As soon as you learn to control your language, I will explain.”

“Shutting up.”

Valfodr – if that was his real name – seemed to relax a little. “This realm is known as the Coliseum. It exists beyond time and space, between dreams and reality. From here, I am tasked by various others to mend cracks in several timelines in other worlds, worlds this realm is connected to.”

The lights around me began to move until I saw a planet not unlike the ones I’d seen in science books about Earth in front of my face. “Is this…”

“One of the worlds connected to the Coliseum. Its name…is Gaia. This place is very different from the world you know. Within it there is an energy, a lifeforce known as the Lifestream. People are born from the Lifestream, and when they die, they return to the Lifestream.”

I looked closer at the planet in front of my stunned eyes. Green streaks of light seemed to surround it, coursing in, over and around the world.

“A conglomerate known as the ShinRa Electric Power Company has discovered a way to use the Lifestream as energy and fuel,” the Arbiter continued. “Most of Gaia runs on this…Mako energy, but it is choking the planet, the cycle interrupted.”

I sighed heavily. “Sounds like any other power company to me. I don’t see why you’d need to send anyone in there, let alone me.”

“Because ShinRa are not the issue. At least, not all of it.”

The view of the planet zoomed in suddenly, and I was shown images of creatures; men with swords; fires; a silver-haired man with madness in his green eyes, his ridiculously long sword coated in blood; a brown-haired woman, kneeling at prayer, brutally killed by this same mad soldier; lastly, a woman who looked like an alien, grey flesh, shining red eyes, silver hair, an eyeball in place of a nipple on her nude body, and a plaque on a helmet of sorts that read: _JENOVA_.

I shook my head and fell back in the chair. “The hell was all that?”

“This is the timeline that must be prevented,” Valfodr proclaimed. “In this timeline, the warrior Sephiroth is driven mad by delusions and lies, resulting in him becoming a soulless killer. Because of this event, there is a domino effect of events. One of the warriors who could stop a catastrophe, one Zack Fair, is killed. And because Zack Fair is dead, his lover Aerith is also killed. None of this is as it should be.”

“So what is supposed to happen? This image of this…Sephiroth guy in a burning town…does that mean the town isn’t supposed to get destroyed?”

“No. The town must fall. But not by Sephiroth’s hand. Rather, by one of his contemporaries. One Genesis.”

I mulled it over. “Okay. Now the big question. Why me? Why not someone more suited to the task? Like that woman who punched me.”

“Because she has been through enough in her time. As for why you…because you are the perfect candidate to represent me. I cannot act in these worlds myself, nor can anyone who resides permanently in this world. In events such as this, I take people who have no real tethers to their own world, and place them into these others. You are one such person.”

Well…I was kind of a loner. No friends, no family, definitely no girlfriend. “Okay. So, what do I get out of doing this?”

“If I am reading the signs right – and I always do – you will earn all the things you do not have in your own, existing life. Friends, family…love.”

I blinked. “Okay, can you read minds or something?”

“No.”

“Oh. Never mind.”

“So…will you assist me willingly? Or will I have to bring Gilgamesh back to convince you?” Valfodr sounded serious.

“No-no-no-no, it’s not necessary to bring him back.”

The Arbiter waited for me to say it.

I sighed. Well, goodbye old, normal life. Hello, exciting, new, crazy life, I guess. “I’m in.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you catch the cameo? I'll give you a hint: pink hair, the all white outfit, a certain resemblance to the statue?!
> 
> Anyway, hopefully there'll be another chapter soon!


End file.
